Firefighters told to cut inspections, union says

ORANGE Firefighters and inspectors were told by management to discontinue annual hazardous-materials inspections on county businesses, even though the Orange County Fire Authority continued to collect the fees for years, officials with the firefighters union said.

The union's statements came Friday afternoon after reports surfaced that the Fire Authority was considering refunds to more than 1,400 businesses that paid fees for inspections that were never done last year. Representatives for the firefighters union said firefighters were being used as “scapegoats” after following the direction of managers at the county's largest fire agency.

The allegations also suggest the Fire Authority could have been receiving the fees for yearly inspections since 2009, even though firefighters and inspectors had been instructed to do them once every three years.

“To not do hazmat inspections annually was a policy decision of executive management,” said Joe Kerr, former president of the Orange County Professional Firefighters Association and the union's current business agent.

Battalion Chief Kris Concepcion rejected the assertion and said that no directive had been given to Fire Authority employees.

When or if that directive was handed down to firefighters and inspectors was not immediately clear. What Fire Authority officials have said they do know is that about 1,460 businesses in the county were billed $360,000 for inspections that did not occur during the 2011-12 fiscal year.

Criminal prosecutors have also been asked to examine the hazmat inspection program, a decision handed down by the agency's 25-member board late Thursday night.

“This agency doesn't think there was criminal activity, but that's the district attorney's role,” said David Kendig, the department's lead attorney.

That's a sentiment echoed by the firefighters union, which said it welcomed the inquiry by an outside agency.

Board members decided to defer taking other action to a later meeting, such as whether to issue refunds to about 1,460 businesses.

“This is in light of information we just received,” said Trish Kelley, a Mission Viejo councilwoman and the Fire Authority's chairwoman.

Fire Authority officials would not comment on what information prompted their decision to refer the issue to the District Attorney's Office or what the inquiry would focus on. In previous interviews, Fire Authority officials said an internal audit had found no fraudulent issues in the program.

Officials described the matter as a “systemwide” failure, in which more than half the inspections slated for the past fiscal year, which ended June 30, weren't done.

Hazmat inspection fees are meant to reimburse the Fire Authority for the inspections.

Fire Authority officials launched an internal audit of their fire-prevention fees and hazmat inspections after receiving an anonymous tip on their fraud hotline in February.

However, an internal email reviewed by The Orange County Register suggests administrators were made aware of a discrepancy between fees and actual costs in late 2011.

Jennifer Muir, spokeswoman for the Orange County Employees Association, said employees spoke to supervisors as far back as three years ago, but administrators did not address the issue. That association represents support staff at the Fire Authority, including fire-prevention employees.

Fire officials laid partial blame for the oversight on the workload of firefighters and other personnel but said the error included firefighters and fire-prevention workers who failed to complete tasks, captains and battalion chiefs who failed to follow through, and a lack of communication among fire prevention, operations and billing departments.

But if the inspections were not done, firefighters would not have had any knowledge of that, Kerr said.

Billing for the inspections is conducted by the county, Concepcion said.

According to officials, about 90 percent of inspections are done by firefighters and the remainder by workers in fire prevention. Depending on the size of the business, hazmat inspections can take 15 minutes to three hours. After the mistake was discovered, firefighters were no longer tasked with doing the hazmat inspections, Concepcion said.

Kerr said that in once instance, a firefighter noticed assigned inspections for the engine company were significantly less than the number of businesses they inspected in previous years.

In April, the engine company asked if the list was complete and received the remainder of their assignment, Kerr said.

“They knew there were a lot more businesses in their inspection area,” he said. “They are the ones policing themselves.”

The missed inspections do not violate state standards, which require that hazmat inspections be done once every three years, but they did tread over Fire Authority standards that required the inspections be done yearly.

Fire Authority staff did propose to board members to change inspections from one to three years during Thursday's board meeting, but the item was delayed after the board decided to involve the District Attorney's Office.

The public staff report for the Thursday night meeting did not mention that refunds, suggested by Fire Authority staffers, would be the result of work that was billed but not done by Fire Authority employees.

Fire Authority officials acknowledged that the refunds would be for inspections that were never done after the Register made inquiries.

So far, the department has not taken any disciplinary action in the matter, Concepcion said.

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